Shifty Hands: A Guide to Picking Pockets

Pick Pocket, for the less-agile and uninitiated, is a unique ability allowing rogues in stealth to loot special items from hostile mobs without entering combat. If done sloppily, it can aggro mobs, annoy your party members, and make you look pretty clumsy. If done correctly (and with enough bag space), you can amass a collection of unique items, and if you’re lucky, some epics inside of a lockbox. There's a lot of mundane objects in the pockets of Azeroth, but one's trash is another's treasure--you might find something amusing like a trashy novel or loaded dice.

This is a guide using Wowhead's vast database to show you every fun item you can pickpocket in World of Warcraft. Either for vanity item collections or just to send your friend something fun, this list will help you rediscover Azeroth and more.

Pick Pocket: An Overview

Pickpocketing was primarily utilized to acquire lockboxes, which were then used to skill up one’s lockpicking. (In Cataclysm, this ability lost some of its charm as it no longer required manual skillups.) It was also heavily featured in rogue-only quests: I have fond memories of Destiny Calls frustrating my level 10, and quests for Ravenholdt Manor and Sunken Temple requiring pickpocketed items. However in Cataclysm, stealth is no longer the answer and these types of quests have been downplayed, although rogues can still pickpocket the Grim Guzzler Key from Plugger Spazzring. Fortunately, most of the silly items remain, upholding the reputation that rogues are slightly sinister with entirely way too much booze and a path of Empty Wallets in their wake.

A few basic pointers about pickpocketing: to most efficiently pickpocket, get Glyph of Pick Pocket and approach your enemies from behind to avoid detection in melee range. Nightstalker is an easily-obtainable and useful talent as it inreases your speed while stealthed. If you see a mob with a blue eyeball over its head—run away, it has increased stealth detection. A pickpocketed mob will take roughly 10 minutes to replenish its pockets: try farming and resetting a dungeon if you are impatient. You can pickpocket most humanoids and some additional mobs as well; a good rule-of-thumb is that if it looks like it has pockets, it probably does. And it never hurts just to stealth up and try your luck anyway; you can even pickpocket some bosses. Just make sure you don't right-click the mob in melee range and auto-attack it by accident.

Here is a basic pickpocketing macro that you can use:

#showtooltip Pick Pocket/targetenemy /cast Pick Pocket/cleartarget

You can modify this a lot if you want to combine pickpocketing with other Subtlety abilities.

Lockboxes

Even without providing skillups anymore, lockboxes, the quintessential rogue item, still have some entertainment value. Heavy Junkboxes are used to increase reputation with Ravenholdt, a requirement of the achievement Insane in the Membrane. Most high-end lockboxes follow the same loot table: they contain some silver, with a chance of gems, healing potions, poisons, and possibly an epic. As your rogue levels, you will automatically be able to open higher-level boxes every few levels. The boxes are not BoP: they can be mailed to alts and friends if you want to stockpile them. The boxes cannot be placed on the Auction House, but their contents can be.

Pocket Corners: Flavor Items

In addition to lockboxes, humanoids contain a wide array of flavor items in their deep pockets. From romance novels to rivets, a rogue can pickpocket something incriminating for later blackmail. There’s also boring stuff like ooze and scraps: it's not as interesting to highlight, but you can find a full list of items from pickpocketing here.

BeveragesA rogue can pickpocket food and drink most any vendor can sell; we’ll concern ourselves with the unique items, namely booze.

Adult BooksIn times of great strife, Azeroth distracts itself with sensational literature possibly centered around General Marcus Jonathan, a strong and silent hero of Stormwind.

A Steamy Romance Novel, the original trash romance novel from Burning Crusade, turns murloc hunting into flirting between a warrior named Marcus and a Nahni, a female mage. Level 20 quest rewards were never so appealing.

Argent Confessor Paletress has a hidden taste for romance; you can pickpocket A Steamy Romance Novel: Blue Moon from her. In this latest installment, Marcus tries to woo Soola, a draenei jewelcrafter, with a cheap necklace. Will she spurn his advances or will the Light soothe all nerves?

A Steamy Romance Novel: Big Brass Bombs, the Cataclysm installment, follows Revi, a sassy goblin, as she prepares for her date with Marcus by buying engineering-flavored toys. The series ends here, but you’ll need a secret goblin decoder ring to read the rest of the story.

The items may not be game-changing, but they add a certain charm to the class, show the humorous side of WoW, and provide collectors with a new batch of items to find. While you can't cast Heroism or tank the boss as a rogue, you can find really embarrassing items--and that's something.

Comments

Comment by Nulgar

You don't need a macro when you have autoloot enabled anyway (which everyone should, actually)

Comment by Ashelia

on 2011/06/04 08:04:45

I had no ideas about the alcohols, now I sort of want to level my Rogue up and get them. I need a gatherer anyway.

Comment by madeinyashiro

on 2011/06/04 08:08:39

Brilliant article !

Comment by Nulgar

on 2011/06/04 08:09:24

I had no ideas about the alcohols, now I sort of want to level my Rogue up and get them. I need a gatherer anyway.

That actually is really sad, rogues not only steal the poor mobs' money, but also their booze that'd help them pass the time of standing around in a certain spot 24/7, or to numb the pain of getting farmed by players.

Comment by Interest

on 2011/06/04 08:51:52

I didn't know using "in" in a macro still works.

Besides that, I like the guide.

-A proud pickpocketer.

Comment by perculia

on 2011/06/04 10:36:51

Personally I pickpocket with no macro and autoloot on. But if you want to tack it onto additional abilities, now you have the basic framework :)

The booze has a fairly-high drop rate. I got a few just in the process of writing up the guide and I think it's neat how they're drinkable bottles instead of just grey items.

Comment by Nagousta

on 2011/06/04 11:35:58

It's almost silly for a rogue to not put pickpocket in with his regular openers! With auto-loot on, you get the money and items automatically with absolutely no extra effort - you just do your opener as normal. You never see a loot window with money, and rarely with items.

You will occasionally lose out on your opener: if you're not special-hit capped or expertise capped and your PP misses or is dodged, you'll be out of stealth and unable to do the opener (if it needs stealth, anyway - I'm fairly sure you'd get a mutilate either way if you happen to open with that, as some assassination rogues do).

(Replace with your opener and an appropriate mid-combat skill - preferably one you would definitely be using before the fight is over! I've never actually tried this, as not having auto-loot on is stupid, but let me know if it doesn't work, such that I can edit it out.)

Lastly, whilst it's outside the scope of this topic, it's a good time to put /startattack in with all your macros. This will avoid idling missing white damage after vanishes and while waiting for energy!

Comment by Drahken

on 2011/06/04 11:54:48

I think Pickpocketing is a lost art. I've been trying to commission rogues to farm some Heavy Junkboxes for me for a while now. Even if it's just 50 at a time, enough times and I'll have Insane in the Membrane. Alas, I've only had one taker, and he was an idiot. I gave him all of the best advice I found here on WoWHead, and even offered him a lift on my Direbrew Remote. He told me he had it covered and he'd be back in 15 minutes. But after a half hour he'd just arrived in Felwood, which has no mobs that have Heavy Junkboxes (and I told him so), proceeded to spend twenty minutes ignoring my advice, then get mad at me when I "refused" to use HGWT on him twice in a row. ("It's got a two hour CD!") Sigh.

From my observations, only fools pickpocket anymore. Hopefully this article will help that.

Comment by Gnub

Comment by Thortok2000

Don't forget the addon Maccaroon for extended Macro availability if you run out of room.

And also, for this macro:

#showtooltip/cast Pickpocket/cast :Garotte; Rupture

You could do this: #showtooltip Garotte; Rupture

And it would work like you want it to.

Thanks to Maccaroon, all my Rogues have Pickpocket macro'd into every spell on the bar.

I also believe pick pocketing with auto loot turned on is like disenchanting...there's very little way NOT to get the loot by accidentally closing the window; closing the window loots it. So unless your inventory is full you're guaranteed to get whatever he had in his pockets, assuming your pick pocket was successful.

Comment by Joejr82

on 2011/06/04 16:31:24

This is my Pickpocket macro, all you do is walk around stealthed spamming it and it will pickpocket every thing in range.

Comment by OverZealous

Glad to see Pickpocketing getting some time in the spotlight, being rather disliked by many rogues, especially newer players; excellent job Perculia =)

I'm ashamed to admit that I had no idea about some of this stuff, despite being a pick-pocketing rogue for six years...

Comment by Alozare

on 2011/06/04 23:54:54

I have to ask, is this because I had to explain to someone on the page for Pickpocket exactly how to pickpocket?If so, lul.

Comment by LoKHor

on 2011/06/05 02:23:13

Ironic that this article was posted when I just decided to go on a pickpocketing spree on Friday. You do end up with a lot of alcohol, and apparently it sells for a little bit of extra gold. I have always had pickpocket on my openers and sap, and always had lockpicking at its max as I levelled my rogue in vanilla (from all those junkboxes).

One thing to note is that if you don't stop for a split second, you won't actually get anything but silver. Make sure you pause as you do the rounds, if deliberately taking up a collection. :)

Best place these days is the twilight humanoids to the south of Hyjal. You can sweep through there, then fly back and start over, as they mobs have respawned pocketfuls of bits and bobs. Not that the greys are worth much, but some of us are still holding our breath for the High Society Top Hat, which requires Polished Bronze Rivets. :)

Comment by Nagousta

on 2011/06/05 02:35:36

You could do this: #showtooltip Garotte; Rupture

And it would work like you want it to.

You are quite right! #showtooltip never used to accept any arguments; I shall update my macros accordingly.

Comment by PingHansen

on 2011/06/05 08:08:07

Most places where pickpocketing is feasible, are also good places to train CC: sap, blind, gouge, etc. Stealth in, find a good, manageable group, and go for it

I have (autoloot on) pickpocket macroed into all of my openers, plus sap:

I use crippling poison on thrown for runners, this little gem enables me to switch between thrown and (bow, etc.), and still use the same keybind/button.#showtooltip/cast Throw; Shoot

Comment by Nerraw

on 2011/06/05 14:17:44

Damn you, now I want to level my rogue and use Pickpocket all the time.

Comment by nextormento

on 2011/06/05 19:57:06

Very nice guide. Proud pickpocketer since like ever here =). I'm still saving the bronze rivets just in case. You can always get a laugh or two linking the silly items in between wipes. Oh, and the dice once didn't have a /roll, jsut an emote that could be used along with a high written roll to make your team mates in a pug super suspiocious of you... fun times.

Pickpocketing is actually a very profitable endevour(if properly macroed to openers it's just free stuff). Last instance of high profit were the incription items that were not easy to aquire at launch (limited suply and hundreds op people camping the vendor in twilight highlands); those thingies were running *very* high in the AH.

A little tip for those farming juckboxes for the insane in the membrane: you canpick the locks and open them without autoloot and get the most valuable item (usualy some silver); as long as you leave some stuff inside it's good for the quests. Quite probably the time expent opening them is too high for it to be profitable, but you fell extra super sneaky doing it, especialy if you are farming under commision.

Comment by Hakunamatata

on 2011/06/06 11:37:44

Perculia, damn you. A lot. I'm one of those playersthat 'were once hardcore and driven casual by the environment of the game', one of those players that 'hate how things work now' but don't feel like joining a vanilla/bc private server cause they're underpopulated or cramped with pvp farmers. It's guides like these that make me want to do something in WoW and then experience the "No, I'm still not okay with how things are going".

By the way, since most of my messages often get misenterpreted, this does mean that this is a good post, in fact, it's a really awesome one, I just often get the urge to share my emotions on the internet and burst the '/y omg this is how things will be from now on /cast Frostbolt' spam bubble.